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The Bastard Noose: Red Mist

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THE BASTARD NOOSE ALL PARTS The red mist, an uncontrollable and immediate descending of violence perhaps not everyone knows. I’ve had it many times in my life and I’m mostly not proud of it. As one friend told me “your mouth has at least talked you out of as many fights as it’s talked you in to.” Shame they weren’t the same fights. Once it comes, there’s no stopping it, but I have got better. Entering a mental health ward I was as polite as I could be. Thrown into a world which scared the life out of me I still didn’t feel as badly off as the poor guys I shared an 18 room ward with. I definitely wasn’t dangerous, but one incident made me lose it to the point I’d have genuinely killed a man. The thing with nut nut* units is that we/they are they unstable, combustible. You have seriously unwell people as well as a sliding doors of men on the precipice of prison, waiting to be given the OK to leave and those headed the other way. I liked many of these, but geezers on their way inside who ...
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Super Bowl LVIII: An American Insight

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The Super Bowl is a well known American phenomenon which I’m willing to bet most people outside of America don’t really understand much about past that it is the biggest, most important game of American football (every year). Over the last five years I have become an increasingly big fan of the sport, so much so that I am now and have always been a Philadelphia Eagles supporter. This year I booked the day after the Super Bowl off work so I could stay up late eating hot dogs, nachos and drinking bourbon while watching the Kansas City Chiefs defend their title against the San Francisco 49ers. My friend who joined me and my girlfriend to watch the Super Bowl said in the buildup that America is a mad country; I happen to like America but he has a point and the Super Bowl proved to be pure confirmation of quite how bonkers the land of the free is. BEDSIT CINEMA DRAFT DAY REVIEW For a starter, there was an alternative live game commentary by two of the actors from Spongebob Squarepants- in c...
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Triggers: One More Light not Last Resort

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“Should have stayed, are the signs I ignored.” Triggers. A “trigger warning”, normally a very short one if you’re listening to a podcast, is to let you know that what is about to be mentioned might upset you more than other people due to either your past traumas or a weak constitution. So I thought, and in a way I was right, but I'm wrong. Trigger warnings always seemed like pandering to pussies, to me. I have seen death, I’ve seen cancer, shootings and old age rip the life from people. I survived mentally, mostly, until I tried not to, but I lucked out and didn’t die. Grow up, make a joke about it and move on. It all goes away in the end, both meta and physically. Recently I had a friend kill herself and as someone who tried the same thing and apparently isn’t very good at it, it hit me much harder than I expected. People die, it should be a right but it shouldn't be one mistake. Anna’s death was a gut punch worse than any other and that includes my closest (although he was ...
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A Eulogy

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“Hello lovely.” A fellow “mature” philosophy student, Anna adored alliteration. Even, dare I say, found it sexy. Sorry I could only manage three words my dear. Fiercely intelligent, a fellow philosophy graduate from my Uni and a person who would, I hope, have liked this reflection, recently had a full stop on breathing. Anna loved dogs, much like Hitler. She’d a sense of humour too and would appreciate me making that comparison. Anna was bloody funny. Brave yet wayward, my pal was always passionate: boasting a son she couldn’t love more, but struggled with the realities of. He was an excellent kid last time I saw him, despite her motherly complaints. Anna’s dog died recently. Her ex died recently. These things take their toll, and I know she loved them both deeply. Her dog was amazing, I never met her ex but her love was unconditional and everlasting. We tended to speak and meet between partners and/or mental health troubles. That was our bond and I now regret it wasn’t firmer. Posthum...
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The Bastard Noose: Food, Family, Friends

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The Bastard Noose Mental Health Ward: Food, Family, Friends My Grandad O'Reilly, apart from being the reason I can never spell my mother’s maiden name, had an important saying: Faith, Family, Friends. It is a good mantra and one I hope to adhere to as closely as I am able. My problem is that I’m an atheist, but I’m just about grown up enough to appreciate how important faith is to a lot of my family. I wanted to replace the F of Faith, and I decided on food. No, I wasn’t going there, get your mind out the gutter. It’s probably pretty obvious if you’ve read the other The Bastard Noose entries that I love food. Eating and cooking (particularly cooking- I’ll happily make food and not eat it) are things I enjoy extremely. Obviously making meals, past lukewarm posh Pot-Noodles, was not an option on the ward. I’ve talked about the ubiquitous cabbage and even toast had to be prepared by someone who wouldn’t try to eat the toaster, or however you kill yourself with a toaster. Recently, a f...
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Recipe: It's (probably) good for you immuno drink

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Ingredients 8 lemons (all the lemons you can fight for at Tesco), two hand size pieces of ginger, ¼ that amount of fresh turmeric, you can use the powdered stuff but fresher the better, and if you have a need to bring mucus up or want to have a fiery poo, throw in some cayenne pepper. Cooking time: 45 minutes After my culinary forays into Ensure and fusilli I though I'd bring some full on fuck you flu fun Method Buzzwords such as wellness,   immunopositive and christhisisspicylemonjuice have been bandied around about this drink. Mainly by me. They may or may not be accurate buzzwords, but It does taste a lot like lemons. This lemon (forewarned), ginger and turmeric drink could well be good for you. I’m not a doctor but I’m also not sick and enjoy conning myself that putting things in me makes for good health. I did ask a doctor about the science involved but he said he was busy and to stop wasting his time. Full of stuff that’s probably beneficial to humans...
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Hooked on True Crime: Documentaries

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Apparently in my middle age* I’ve begun obsessively documenting everything like Kevin Spacey in Seven. I’m not a serial killer though. Yes I have the time for it (or else why would I be writing this), I just don’t have the inclination or nerve. I imagine driving round with three dead bodies in your boot is kind of nervy. Why three you ask? More fun than two. I imagine. With three bodies in the car though you better hope you paid the congestion charge. Also I don’t drive, so those bodies would be hard to shift. Plus there’s the whole alibi thing. The practicalities of serial killing really are a pain in the arse. I imagine. Where podcasts largely tell you about crime, documentaries are much more emotive. True crime docs are diverse and differ in approach and style. Some are 90 minutes, some are 10 episodes. This list doesn’t exclude based on format, it is limited to what I’ve seen, liked and want to recommend- I’ve tried to mix the list up a bit. The word Netflix crops up a l...
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